To Regain Our Knowledge (that we are safe)

One of my reader’s comment on a poem of mine was that it gave her a safe feeling. And after much thought, I came to some conclusions. The first being to educate ourselves to broaden our premises so that the unknown will become a known. The narrower our premises the more outside our frame of reference will raise concerns. The more we learn, the more at home we become with things outside our focus.

Not all babies of course, fall into arms ready for them. We are born with a cry and clenched fists and need those arms to quiet a fierce pain of separation. Life presents many obstacles not to mention a peer group only too happy to help the child lose the feeling that the world is a safe place. Parents need to nurture the feeling of safety. It is only then we begin to lose our fear.

It seems a lifetime is spent talking to ourselves about fear. If we reacquaint ourselves with the knowledge that we are always safe, the who that we are, no matter the condition of our environment, we lose our fear of the world and can begin to work good for ourselves and our Earth. Too much time is spent trying to lose our fears from the first step outside the playpen to our final fear of death. From beginning to the end, we are one mass of fears. The media and architectures of business, the things that run our lives designed to sell us what we don’t need are all designed to feed our fears. Fear is between the ears for this is where it originates.

Regaining the knowledge that we are always safe, will help us lose our fears. We then will know that life is everlasting, through this world and those still to come.

We Break Bread

I have broken bread
with old friends for what seems
to be many centuries.

We continue
our conversations begun
when yet we were in
other times and were other people.

But it has been, you see,
only a minute.
We bring to mind all things old
and some things new.

‘Twas but a quirk of Nature,
so that our hearts would grow
and become one heart.
It all has a familiar fit.
Don’t you think?

All things will be new again
when we break bread
in the next of times.
But you knew that, didn’t you?

All things new are really all things old.
Even some of us.

photo by
John Holmes

About Veronica Hallissey

Veronica Hallissey has been writing since the 1960s, with her poetry published in a variety of small press magazines. Born into a farm family in Lockport, NY, and educated at the University of Buffalo and other midwest institutions, she brings and unusual point-of-view to her poetry, combining strong natural images with a deep spiritual language. She lives in Lake Forest, CA.